Some of the people who went to fight attacked a large village, and killed several men; but in shooting in a bushy place they killed one of their own party and wounded another.
On inquiring of an Arab who had sailed on Tanganyika which way the water flowed, he replied to the south!
The wagtails build in the thatch of the huts; they are busy, and men and other animals are active in the same way.
I am rather perplexed how to proceed. Some Arabs seem determined to go westwards as soon as they can make it up with Nsama, whilst others distrust him. One man will send his people to pick up what ivory they can, but he himself will retire to the Usango country. Nsama is expected to-day or to-morrow. It would be such a saving of time and fatigue for us to go due west rather than south, and then west, but I feel great hesitation as to setting out on the circuitous route. Several Arabs came from the Liemba side yesterday; one had sailed on Tanganyika, and described the winds there as very baffling, but no one of them has a clear idea of the Lake. They described the lower part as a "sea," and thought it different from Tanganyika.
Close observation of the natives of Ulungu makes me believe them to be extremely polite. The mode of salutation among relatives is to place the hands round each other's chests kneeling, they then clap their hands close to the ground. Some more abject individuals kiss the soil before a chief; the generality kneel only, with the fore-arms close to the ground, and the head bowed down to them, saying, "O Ajadla chiusa, Mari a bwino." The Usanga say, "Ajé senga." The clapping of hands to superiors, and even equals, is in some villages a perpetually recurring sound. Aged persons are usually saluted: how this extreme deference to each other could have arisen, I cannot conceive; it does not seem to be fear of each other that elicits it. Even the chiefs inspire no fear, and those cruel old platitudes about governing savages by fear seem unknown, yet governed they certainly are, and upon the whole very well. The people were not very willing to go to punish Nsama's breach of public law, yet, on the decision of the chiefs, they went, and came back, one with a wooden stool, another with a mat, a third with a calabash of ground-nuts or some dried meat, a hoe, or a bow—poor, poor pay for a fortnight's hard work hunting fugitives and burning villages.
16th June, 1867.—News came to-day that an Arab party in the south-west, in Lunda, lost about forty people by the small-pox ("ndué"), and that the people there, having heard of the disturbance with Nsama, fled from the Arabs, and would sell neither ivory nor food: this looks like another obstacle to our progress thither.
17th-19th June, 1867.—Hamees went to meet the party from the south-west, probably to avoid bringing the small-pox here. They remain at about two hours' distance. Hamees reports that though the strangers had lost a great many people by small-pox, they had brought good news of certain Arabs still further west: one, Seide ben Umale, or Salem, lived at a village near Casembe, ten days distant, and another, Juma Merikano, or Katata Katanga, at another village further north, and Seide ben Habib was at Phueto, which is nearer Tanganyika. This party comprises the whole force of Hamees, and he now declares that he will go to Nsama and make the matter up, as he thinks that he is afraid to come here, and so he will make the first approach to friendship.
On pondering over the whole subject, I see that, tiresome as it is to wait, it is better to do so than go south and then west, for if I should go I shall miss seeing Moero, which is said to be three days from Nsama's present abode. His people go there for salt, and I could not come to it from the south without being known to them, and perhaps considered to be an Arab. Hamees remarked that it was the Arab way first to smooth the path before entering upon it; sending men and presents first, thereby ascertaining the disposition of the inhabitants. He advises patience, and is in hopes of making a peace with Nsama. That his hopes are not unreasonable, he mentioned that when the disturbance began, Nsama sent men with two tusks to the village whence he had just been expelled, offering thereby to make the matter up, but the Arabs, suspecting treachery, fired upon the carriers and killed them, then ten goats and one tusk were sent with the same object, and met with a repulse; Hamees thinks that had he been there himself the whole matter would have been settled amicably.
All complain of cold here. The situation is elevated, and we are behind a clump of trees on the rivulet Chiloa, which keeps the sun off us in the mornings. This cold induces the people to make big fires in their huts, and frequently their dwellings are burned. Minimum temperature is as low as 46°; sometimes 33°.
24th June, 1867.—The Arabs are all busy reading their Koran, or Kurán, and in praying for direction; to-morrow they will call a meeting to deliberate as to what steps they will take in the Nsama affair. Hamees, it seems, is highly thought of by that chief, who says, "Let him come, and all will be right." Hamees proposes to go with but a few people. These Zanzibar men are very different from the slavers of the Waiyau country.